


Alliance of Alternates

by AwfulLawful



Category: Megamind (2010)
Genre: After the Movie, Alternate Megamind Trusts No One, Building A New Life, Comfort No Hurt, Dark Past, Doppelganger, Evil Alternate Metro Man, F/M, Good Alternate Megamind, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Territorial Aliens, Wayne is a Clumsy Caretaker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-02-19 06:06:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22973155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwfulLawful/pseuds/AwfulLawful
Summary: Previously posted on FF.net in 2016.  Wayne Scott's retirement is interrupted by the arrival of a Megamind from another dimension who fled to escape the villain that Wayne's double there had become. Honor-bound to heal the hurts of his other, Wayne finds himself a caretaker and guardian until the alternate of his little buddy recovers; which is easier said than done.
Relationships: Alternate Megamind/Metro Man, Megamind/Metro Man, Megamind/Roxanne Ritchi
Comments: 33
Kudos: 166





	1. Of Vice and Vortex

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Evil Metro Man](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/563533) by Celestialess. 



> This was put up way back in 2016 at fanfiction.net under the title Elseworld Episode. It started as a comment on a Deviantart piece by Celestialess titled Evil Metro Man. I am putting up here now because I am currently writing chapter 2, along with the next chapter of Isthmus. Not sure how long it's going to be, but I'm glad I can finally continue it. I did not fully proofread it to be sure my science babble was coherent, so I apologize if it's a bit muddled.

" **The Long Arm of the Plot:** Any bad guys, no matter how far they run, will always end up in one of two ways by the end of the game; obviously dead, or on your side. There is no in-between." ~ Console RPG Cliches #185

* * *

The sickly yellow-teal light of the vortex was only made creepier by the utter lack of noise it produced.

The space had no insistent static crackle to it as one would expect. Instead, there was a greasy feel to the space around it –as if its presence made the air more fluid- and the air subtly tasted of copper. Megamind had managed to make one of these portals once, though he hadn't been brave enough to try and go through it – he used it as a way to move large inventions and never dared to use it on anything living. Once Wayne had destroyed the first portal gun it had never been rebuilt. Whether this was due to Megamind's tendency to resist making the same thing twice or because he wasn't comfortable enough with the science to try it again was never exactly clear, but Wayne did remember that the blue man hadn't exactly pitched his usual fit over one of his toys being eradicated.

The vortex had appeared in his kitchen, of all places, and hovered in the air about three feet off the ground at its center and completely obscured the stacked ovens behind it. Wayne wondered if Megamind was playing with temporal distortion again. He wouldn't put it past his odd little buddy to decide appearing uninvited at his former enemy's home to demonstrate it was an acceptable way to gloat, especially since Wayne had teased him the last time about not wanting to try going through it himself. He remembered being a bit cruel about it, implying Megamind's lack of confidence in his own inventions was justified. If that was the case Wayne would accept the gloating gracefully and would be content to provide an apology if prompted.

He still wondered about it. Something didn't seem quite right. It was only that Megamind's portal had been a bright and brilliant blue and green, not this mix of dull, sad colors. Though that might mean it was someone else's portal, it also might not – he knew that frequency and color were connected somehow. Perhaps this was the improved version Megamind felt safer with as a method of transport. If it was anyone else they would be in for a hell of a surprise. Wayne didn't generally take kindly to break-ins and shedding his Metro Man regalia wouldn't prevent him from enjoying the opportunity to use his powers again and cart some idiots off to jail. Under Citizen's Arrest, of course, since Wayne no longer existed. If he played his cards right they wouldn't even be conscious long enough to see his home or realize what had hit them.

In the moments after its opening Wayne had thought this, examined the portal without touching it (walking around it only made him dizzy as it seemed entirely two-dimensional), and changed out of his robe and into some normal street clothes. All done in his super-speed, the vortex had only spun halfway from appearing to now before he returned to wait and see what it would do. Upon slowing to the speed everyone else operated on he discovered the thing was spinning very fast indeed; and maintained complete and utter silence. It didn't even produce a subtle breeze. For all the presence it had in the room it might have been an illusion, if not for the taste and feel of the air.

It seemed a while to him before anything happened. He made his coffee, cut a ripe pear into wedges, toasted bread and set up his breakfast. After a moment of thought he did it all again just in case it did turn out to be his blue friend. It would be rude not to offer, and Megamind had proved invaluable as an advisor on his musical career; Roxanne had no idea what a song sounded like unplugged and rough cut, so her concept of 'talent' was very skewed. Some of his finished songs had made her gape in surprise. Wayne remembered the last song she had done that for and grinned to himself while leaning back against the fridge as he sipped his coffee.

It was then that he heard the tinny scream of laser-vision from within the swirl of light.

An instant later a familiar blue form rocketed out of it as if launched from a catapult. Miraculously Wayne reacted in time to catch him before impact with the kitchen counter at that speed surely would have rent him in two. He had not, however, managed to completely avoid the blazing red trails of light following Megamind, which bit harshly into Wayne's back as he shielded him. Wayne's clothes instantly caught fire and he tossed Megamind over the breakfast bar to the couch where he would land safely.

Wayne understood now. This wasn't an experiment; it was a battle. Megamind had been trying to escape and he clearly needed help. While the smoke alarm wailed at him he tore off the remains of his shirt and put it in a pot where it could burn out safely and then turned his attention back to the vortex. For what was surely only a quarter second it remained open. In that time Wayne saw something that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his days.

A flesh-colored distortion screamed and thrashed in the tunnel within. The effect was only made all the faster by the pinprick of violet light in the distance winking out, which Wayne thought must have been the entrance to the tunnel disappearing into nothingness. The warped creature could not go back, so it had to move forward. As the distortion spun and twisted hideously and made its way closer to the exit it began to take on more humanoid features proportional to the reduced distance to conventional reality. As he stared in horror, Wayne began to see his own face, arms, and shoulders solidify just outside the doorway whilst the rest of the body remained at the mercy of swirling temporal forces.

He looked furious. His eyes were glowing red, bile and blood flowed freely from mouth, nose, ears, and even around his eyes. He bore an expression of wrath that one would expect to see only on Death itself.

Wayne knew he should reach out to him, save him if at all possible, but reaching into that vortex would only cause him to distort the same way. Wayne didn't know if it would pull him in too. Looking at the other him caused a deep sense that something was terribly wrong; something that he felt in the presence of villains of the most evil kind who delighted in the pain and torment of others so much that it was their only reason for living. Wayne found himself unconsciously backing away from the portal. If he had to fight this… person… he didn't know if he could win; especially if he possessed all the same powers. Rage and insanity had a way of making power more dangerous, if only because the wielder had a more ruthless method of using them and never seemed to care about bystanders and collateral damage. Tossing buildings around is a lot easier if one doesn't care about the people inside them.

Just before it closed the other Wayne seemed to realize he wasn't going to make it and shouted something unintelligible and venomous. An awful noise like shredding fabric screamed out of the vortex as the misshapen mass finally couldn't bear the stress of being stretched any longer and was minced into thousands of pieces. The ring of sickly light closed into nothing before him and Wayne was certain, instinctively, that he had just watched himself die.

It would seem that his weakness, the only method by which he was aware he might be destroyed, was warping reality itself. And now he knew Megamind could certainly do that if he so chose to. Maybe that was why he had never remade the portal gun. It definitely would have worked… and ended their game.

But where had the other him come from? How was that possible? He leaned back against the counter and closed his eyes to think.

…Megamind. He had created Tighten using what little DNA he had gathered after Wayne's apparent demise. Perhaps he had decided to go all the way and make a clone? It would be a terrible betrayal if done after becoming Metro City's new hero, but not outside the realms of possibility. Wayne didn't want to believe that because it would put Roxanne in danger too. He really hadn't thought Megamind was capable of doing something that harebrained after seeing proof firsthand that duplicating Wayne was inadvisable at best.

With this in mind he focused his eyes toward Metro City. Even over great distances he could focus his x-ray eyes to view what he needed, and from anywhere in the city he could usually find what he wanted if it was in a predictable place. Roxanne was not in her apartment, but she was in Megamind's lab.

Megamind was with her.

The weight of shock was heavy as he moved to look at the silent, still figure on his couch. Yes, this was still definitely Megamind.

And yet… it was clearly not.

He stared for a long while before he could wrest himself out of his stupor and get his phone.

* * *

Roxanne drove the invisible car, which was currently visible, down the road at breakneck speed. They had been given a police siren and lights by the city council in the event they had to get somewhere in a hurry due to a crime, which Megamind was not abusing in the slightest (sarcasm font desperately needed). From the back seat came the sounds of tinkering, power tools, and the occasional maniacal laugh as Megamind worked fervently on something to take out their new threat. They were on their way to take down yet another ridiculously costumed villain who had returned to town after being chased out years before in the belief that Megamind would be an easier target than Wayne, and the fact that they were entirely correct did not bode well.

As her phone rang, Roxanne ignored it. The second time it went off, though, Minion picked it up and looked at the number. "Uh, Miss Ritchie? You might want to take this."

"Kind of busy here!" she called and turned the car sharply to make their exit. In the back, Megamind yelled as he and everything he was working on slid to the right and impacted loudly against the door. A faint 'ow' was barely heard over the sirens.

Minion glanced back to be sure he wasn't hurt and then persisted. "But it's Metr- er… Mr. Scott, Ma'am."

Roxanne flipped off the sirens and slowed to a normal pace so she could talk and drive safely, then snatched her phone. Quickly setting it to speaker, she set it on the dashboard and continued toward their destination. "Wayne, do you have any advice on this one? We're-"

Wayne, who had been watching them just before he called, said, "You'll be fine, she's right up Megamind's alley. When you're done I need you to get an outfit out of Megamind's lair and head over to my place as fast as you can."

Roxanne lifted a brow. "One; I am still not your girlfriend. Two; aren't we a little old for sleepovers? Three; how do you know I keep clothes at his place, anyway?"

"Megamind's, Roxie. Something loose like his nightclothes-"

Megamind then hissed at Roxanne. "You could have warned me before that turn!"

"Wear your damned seat belt," Roxie snapped.

He snorted. "You're just lucky my torch wasn't on-"

"GUYS!" They all looked at the phone again. The force of that yell had made the phone physically vibrate on the dashboard. "Just trust me and do it, alright?" Silence followed. Roxie stopped at a red light moments later and snapped the phone shut.

Megamind lifted his goggles up onto his forehead and looked to Roxanne in confusion. "Why does he want us to bring clothes? Was he hitting on us?"

With her arm on the back of the seat, Roxanne shrugged. "The better question is; are we interested if he was?"

They looked at the phone and hummed in thought, clearly considering it, while Minion had both hands on the sides of his bowl dearly wishing he had ears to cover in these situations.

* * *

The more Wayne stared the more apparent the differences between the two Megaminds became. It had been an hour since he called his backup and they were late, damn them. They had obviously misinterpreted the urgency of his call and weren't exactly hurrying after escorting Lady Doppler to jail. She indeed fell quickly as, predictably, Megamind did very well defeating enemies whose primary skill was technology. Whereas it might take him a while to work out how to defeat someone with superpowers all the inventors fell like dominoes in his wake. They didn't stand a chance. He and Roxie were celebrating just before they came over to Wayne's, which would inevitably involve showers afterward and delay them still further.

In the meantime Wayne was stuck looking after this strange doppelgänger.

After he had called Roxanne Wayne had done a scan of his unexpected guest and quickly found out why he was still unconscious; the force with which he had been knocked through the portal had indeed been because he had been launched. Megamind was not as fragile as the average human, no, but he would break under enough pressure – and this one had taken a hit that was hard enough to cause a deep fracture in his cheekbone. It had not become apparent until after the area was swollen and brilliant pink, but Wayne had set it and it would heal on its own in time. The burst of laser-vision from the unfortunate Wayne duplicate had indeed connected on a very small patch of the blue man's shoulder, which had blistered and blackened. Wayne wasn't worried about those things.

He was worried about everything else that he had found.

As much as they had fought, Megamind bore few scars or permanent damage. Though he had certainly been hurt quite a lot he healed faster than humans and rarely showed marks after that. Even bone fractures healed relatively fast – a few days at most depending on severity. It was Megamind's own version of an inherited superpower: nanobots that his parent race used as their own type of mandatory vaccination. It was protection from the world at large. They were constantly repairing him as quickly as they could, keeping him healthy and preventing disease. This was a lucky break for both Earth and Megamind as it kept him from transmitting his people's diseases to an entirely unprepared population and kept Earth's diseases from turning Megamind's extremely endangered species into an extinct one.

As they grew they made more of themselves and were powered by the same method that fueled their host: converting food to energy. Wayne was grateful for this as, in one particularly heated battle, he had accidentally severed Megamind's right hand with one wayward stroke of his heat vision. He had been aiming in a completely different direction at the time and failed to notice a polished surface sufficient to rebound it, and the results had been devastating.

Megamind had known what to do, though, and simply had the severed limb bound to its root. It healed. Wayne would never forget that Megamind had forgiven him that incident, enemies though they'd been. He never believed it had been deliberate. Perhaps that was when Wayne had started to like the little guy and their banter turned more comical rather than offensive. That was when it became more like a game.

If this copy of Megamind was a clone then someone had done a marvelous job of both reproducing those nanobots and simulating old scars. Wayne's x-ray clearly revealed the nanobots still swimming away and diligently doing their jobs in this blue man as well, but he had _scars_. They were thin yet very long and must have come from massive injuries. Imagination failed on what must have happened to cause them, mostly because Wayne was trying very hard not to think about it. A few of them had layering in the scar tissue, indicating the same wounds had to have been opened several times before healing completely. There were few things that could have caused that. Something that vicious had to be intentional. He had been intentionally hurt so badly that the nanobots couldn't heal him entirely.

Those were only the old scars, though. He was littered with new ones too. They were disturbingly… decorative. To Wayne's growing unease he could tell they were obviously made with Laser-vision as well. Delicate interlocking patterns of swirls, dots and lines wound over the entirety of the blue man's skin. It resembled absolutely nothing he had seen on Earth; the designs were too intricate. As far as Wayne could tell not a single limb, finger, or toe had been spared. It must have been monstrously painful, especially with the little nanobots trying to repair the burns. The only way Wayne could think the scars would remain visible was if they had been carved repeatedly until layers upon layers of scar had eventually become wide enough to see. Alternatively, they could have been burned through and held apart until the nanobots had no choice but to work inward. Either way it must have been torture, but the second option actually sounded easier.

Comparatively, this guy was smaller than the Megamind Wayne knew. Not only was this one thinner, which was quite a feat that made him look positively flimsy, he was also a bit shorter. Wayne had seen similar effects when visiting remote areas of the world to help during or after natural disasters and knew well that inadequate food, a famine for example, would stunt growth in children that survived it. The differences between adult siblings who were born at different times could be pretty jarring. This one observation did not bode well and Wayne was beginning to trust the first impression he had gotten from his other self, and accept that this may be more than a simple time travel or cloning incident.

Wayne knew a victim when he saw one. He couldn't exactly take him to a hospital or the police to handle. Until he got Megamind's input on the situation he couldn't even think of an explanation let alone how to move forward. In the meantime there was someone that clearly needed his help who had no other resources to count on than Wayne himself. This was what prompted him to take matters into his own hands.

Wayne had never been sick or injured before. When his parents suffered both they were always taken care of by hired help, and he certainly didn't have any siblings or kids of his own. He had never dealt with this particular aspect of rescue before – once the immediate danger was taken care of it had always been civil servants who handled the actual caretaking and recovery. Wayne had absolutely no experience with taking care of anyone, even himself. All he could do was make educated guesses at this point and hope they were right.

The first obvious thing to do was discard the battered and practically useless clothes the duplicate had arrived in. At some point every villain/hero wound up in the sewer pursuing either each other or escape, and these clothes smelled like they had seen many such excursions recently. They also looked as if they had been taken out of either a dumpster or stolen from a poor consignment shop. This was why he had requested Megamind bring a change of clothes: there was no saving the ones his double had arrived in. They went straight into the trash.

The next obvious thing to do was dress him in something else. Given the options available until Megamind finally arrived it was either going to be a blanket or Wayne's robe, but the immediate problem with that was doing that now would prove pretty futile given that the man was just as filthy as his clothes had been. Wayne was already positive he was going to have to clean his couch after he was finished getting his unexpected visitor settled. For someone with his senses the stench was nearly unbearable (those enemies that figured it out made him go into the sewers quite a lot out of malice) and he didn't want that to linger in his house any longer than absolutely necessary. As the man was still unconscious and likely to remain so for quite some time while the nanobots did their work and both Megamind and Roxanne were quite a while away still, Wayne grudgingly accepted that it was up to him to solve the problem.

* * *

Megamind was clearly freaking out, but _quietly_ , which was rare.

It never lasted long, though, so Wayne preemptively clamped a hand over his mouth before he let out an overdramatic scream. "Can you not wake him up before we've had a chance to think, please?" he hissed. A short x-ray vision scan just before they entered showed the nanobots weren't working as frantically as they had been before, which required less energy. After seeing how they worked in Megamind, Wayne had no doubt that meant this duplicate was now capable of being woken.

He would also wake up hungry.

Megamind pushed at his hands until he let go. He spoke in the same whisper Wayne had explained the situation in. "I was gasping. I'm not stupid enough to yell four feet away from someone I want to stay asleep."

"That's only partially true," Roxanne argued quietly. "Any ideas?"

Megamind glared at her as if he could bore, 'of course I do' into her retinas telepathically.

"Sorry," she shrugged.

" **Multiverse Theory.** Wayne, how many times have you fought villains that could travel through time?" he asked Wayne.

"One, not counting the two that managed it accidentally. It seems to be a popular theme," Wayne sighed tiredly. Megamind nodded at him and turned to go into the other room where they could speak normally. They followed him, leaving the other one of him to sleep. "So what's this Multiverse thing?"

Megamind rubbed his temples. He didn't speak, but went to the fridge and swiped a juice. He tossed one to Roxanne.

"Well?" Wayne insisted.

"I'm trying to figure out how to explain it to you two in a way you'll understand it," he snapped. "In my mind it's a jigsaw pattern of numbers, frequencies, and planes; but I know what it means. Putting it into words is a lot harder. Give me a minute."

Wayne got up and made them all coffee while Megamind brooded.

"As far as time is concerned, what do you know?" he asked at last.

"Only that effect follows cause," Roxanne shrugged.

"Wrong," Megamind said instantly. "Time is simultaneous. This is going to be a lot harder than I thought…" He took a few big gulps of his coffee, winced, added enough sugar to kill a housecat, and sat back again while he stirred what had basically become coffee-flavored sugar soup. "How about this; time and space distort each other. You can only have a completely accurate measurement of space if you calculate that from a reference frame in which time does not exist, and visa-versa. Better?"

"No," his audience answered in perfect sync.

Megamind pinched the bridge of his nose and cursed all Human languages for their inadequacy. "Just believe me when I say dimensional travel is possible and relatively easy compared to landing in the right place, ok?"

Wayne chuckled and shook his head. "I believe that first part. How would landing in the right place be hard?"

Roxanne brightened. "Oh, I know this one!"

Megamind flashed her a fond smile. "You ask him the important question, then."

"Ok," she said. "Alright Wayne, _where is the Earth_?"

"We're on it," he answered incredulously.

"Yes," Megamind said wearily. "The Earth is also spinning along its axis and rotating around the sun. The sun is moving within the Orion arm of the Milky Way Galaxy and swaying up and down as it goes along, further disturbing the Earth's position by dragging it along too. The Milky Way is spinning and moving in space, and being dragged either toward or pushed away from other galaxies, whose gravitational pull also has an effect on- are you starting to see my point? You can't just open a portal to another universe and expect it to open in the same place _on Earth_. It would be easy for it to open in the same place in _space_ , but the Earth would certainly not be there for the travelers to land on.

Managing to make the portal in the first place is relatively easy. Dimension-hopping is complicated but it's basically the time-space equivalent of poking a hole through a piece of paper and coming out the other side. Landing on the right planet? Even if you manage to land in the same place in time that doesn't mean the gravitational constants in both dimensions will be the same. All things considered, the Earth is moving abysmally fast in space with all the stability of a _drunk bumblebee_."

Roxanne nodded. "And you have to figure out how to get the portal to first appear **on** that bumblebee and then **stick to it** once it opens." She turned to Megamind, "Right?"

"…basically, yes." Megamind considered mentioning how the portal needed to conform to the gravitational forces around it without losing structural stability but Roxanne's explanation, while simple and trite, was more likely to make sense to the sentient slab of muscle they were trying to explain Finite Temporal Distortion to. Megamind crossed his arms and scowled. "And then we'd have to land on the surface of the Earth and not appear either a thousand miles under or over it depending on the time of day."

They stared at him.

"A Barycenter," he elaborated.

More staring.

Megamind palmed his face as if he wanted to wash off contagious stupid. "You know that Pluto has a moon called Charon?"

"Yes," they agreed.

"You're wrong. Pluto isn't a planet, it's a planetoid. Charon isn't Pluto's moon – it's another planetoid. They are two planetoids orbiting each other around a common barycenter – the point between two objects where they balance each other. Since Pluto is closer to the barycenter it is true that Charon goes around Pluto, but only because it is farther away from their mutual center. They're less like planet and moon than two planetoids orbiting a common central point. Like… a binary star system."

"Okay. Now what does this have to do with the Earth?" Wayne asked.

The Earth _wobbles_ along the orbital plane," Megamind said tersely. "Because the large moon pulls it off-center. It's a similar dance as Pluto and Charon but with one partner _much_ bigger than the other, so as they spin around the bigger partner moves less than it would if the outside partner were a similar size… but there's still a significant wobble. In truth, the Earth and Moon are almost a double-planet system, except that the barycenter is still located inside the Earth and not outside of it. The barycenter of the Earth and Moon, the middle point where they spin around each other, is located about a thousand miles below the crust; halfway to the core. So the core of the planet we are standing on is not the same as the gravitational center that actually travels along the orbital plane. The 'ground level' we need to land on, or even slightly above, _moves_ up and down relative to that barycenter depending on the time of day because the moon is pulling the planet off-center along the orbital plane relative to the sun."

Wayne gave Roxanne a look that clearly said 'I'm glad he was never _actually_ evil.'

"I _saw_ that," Megamind snapped tartly over the edge of his coffee cup.

"If he did it - the other you- you can too, though," Wayne began. "Maybe we can send him back. If the evil me is gone now-"

"NO," Megamind insisted harshly. "We're fifty feet underground at the moment, you muscle-brain." He motioned to the ceiling to illustrate this. Wayne had carved out the stone himself to create his hidden home. "It was by an infinitesimally small amount considering the calculations involved, but he still _missed_. It was only sheer dumb luck that he appeared in an empty pocket in the crust rather than say… solid rock. Or the middle of an ocean. Or in the basin of an active volcano. Or in the _Stratosphere_. Argue with me all you want but I am NOT attempting to send him back, especially if he doesn't want to go. As a newly reformed Villain I refuse to be responsible for what would very likely be the most spectacularly creative murder ever." He paused. "Or would it be suicide..?"

Wayne winced and sat back heavily, which made his couch give a complaining groan. "So… he's staying."

"Unless we're evil and he's suicidal, yes."

Wayne palmed his face wearily. "If it's that difficult, then how in Fudge's name did he end up in my kitchen?"

"Because, old friend, fate has a sense of humor; at least it does in our universe. We both know he was trying to get as far away from you – the other you- as possible. With that in mind doesn't it just figure he wound up literally running into you the second he arrived?" Megamind said tiredly.

"Strangely, yes, that does make perfect sense," Roxanne agreed.

After he was finished explaining Megamind finished the rest of his drink and lay his head back against the couch to rest his neck. "It's a miracle it worked at all."

"What now?" Roxanne asked quietly. "Now that the evil version of Wayne is gone, what if the other you wants to go back and we have to tell him no?"

"He didn't want to go back," Megamind said. He held up the portal gun that his alternate had used. "This was only meant for a single-use. It was _designed_ to break after firing once to the point where the circuitry was fried by the very act of pulling the trigger. Even if I could fix the portal gun it would take me months to do the calculations over again and I'd need his help to do it, and he's already failed once so I doubt we would fare better on a second run." Sighing, he sat up and stared sadly at it, then put it on the table. "What worries me is; if there was a 'me' and a 'you' in that other world," he said 'you' while gesturing to Wayne, ", then where is Roxanne and Minion?"

Both Roxanne and Wayne winced. "I don't want to think about it," she said firmly.

"I don't have a choice," Megamind grumbled. "In situations like this I really wish I could NOT think for a while, but I can't."

"So, what do we do now?" Wayne asked.

Megamind sighed. "Nothing to do but wait until he wakes up and hear his side of the story, though I highly suggest you take everything out of that room with your picture on it, Wayne. I don't want a battle breaking out the instant he wakes up."


	2. Little Worlds

It had taken far less than a second for Wayne to quietly enter the bedroom where his new guest was still sleeping and remove anything that would prematurely tip off the duplicate of where he was and whose house he was in. Admittedly, he’d only done it out of politeness since Megamind was the person he was relying on for the planning phase.

“He’s going to know anyway,” Wayne said as he put the last item in the hallway closet. “This was pointless.”

Megamind raised a brow at him. “How?”

Wayne leaned back against the wall and tiredly ran a hand over his face. He glanced toward the kitchen where Roxanne was already making something for when the stranger woke, as she knew how ravenous Megamind was after the nanobots fixed him up. It was sweet of her and he very much appreciated her help, as well as the distraction so he could talk to Megamind alone. As long as they’d known each other, it was comforting for the two males to hear her doing something away from them to be sure she wasn’t spying in on a private conversation. She was, politely, making enough noise for Megamind to hear her.

“I didn’t notice it until after I got him cleaned up-“

“You gave him a bath?” Megamind asked with amused interest.

“I HAD to!” Wayne snapped so fiercely Megamind stopped teasing and paid close attention. “You KNOW how much I hate filth on or around me as good as my sense of smell is. That guy was so repulsive it HAD to be deliberate. I know why too. Once I got him in the shower and hosed off most of it all I could clearly smell two things: _me_ , and sex. It was old, maybe a matter of months or up to a year, but it’s definitely there.”

Megamind’s expression changed to one that matched Wayne’s inner turmoil. They both knew that the larger alien was from a territorial species and exactly what that implied. Wayne could choose if he left a scent marker that strong. He’d only ever done it to objects. Thank goodness his mother had been smart enough to hire an exobiologist to be his primary physician. He hadn’t needed medical care per se, but he needed to know about himself to avoid any accidents that his powers could very obviously cause. Even normal people accidentally killed during rough sports on rare occasions, and Wayne was an involuntary manslaughter charge waiting to happen if he so much as _gestured_ in the wrong direction.

Years of behavioral counseling had managed to work it out and teach him how to deal with his urges carefully. All things considered they were extremely lucky that there were no other males of his species on the planet for him to fight over boundaries with. He absolutely would have. Effectively, then entire planet was his territory. He just had a home base, sort of, in Metro City.

Rule number 1: ONLY mark objects, NEVER people.

But that evil son of a bitch in the other universe had done _exactly that_. 

“It’s affected you already?” the blue man asked carefully.

Wayne nodded and growled a little through gritted teeth. “Instantly. It’s _my_ scent. Doesn’t matter if I did it myself or not. He’s _drenched_ in it.”

Damn it, and the **instant** he had caught that… taking care of the other alien had felt so natural that he hadn’t stopped until he was satisfied that he was as groomed and comfortable as it was possible to be. From basic soap and water to shaving his beard, cutting his nails, and anything else Wayne would have done for himself. It disturbed him how easy it was despite having no experience. The urge to take care of something that every cell in his body recognized as being definitively _his_ had never hit Wayne so hard before… but then nothing else he’d recognized that way had been alive and breathing and smelled like blood and fear either.

Damn, he’d even recognized that he was doing two other things in the process of everything else – looking for parasites and smelling him for illness. Thankfully neither had applied, but he had been unconsciously worried about both.

Megamind hissed. “What kind of crazy…?”

Wayne nodded. “I’ve never in my life felt glad that another being is dead, but here we are.”

The blue man paced restlessly. “If he’d gotten through and you two **_fought_** -“

“I **_know_** , Megs.”

The destruction could have been damn near global before either of them won, and if the other guy had less restraint and more experience fighting… Wayne already knew he would have lost. After he’d been forced to listen to the dying cries of possible millions. True, none of this was definitively what would occur – but Wayne knew nothing of his original world or how it operated. Megamind’s parents, at least, had clearly been scientists as he remembered them building the pod that brought him here. But Wayne? Maybe his parents were just rich or powerful enough to get their own kid off world fast enough.

That thought annoyed him more than he’d like it to. Imagine being the scientists forced to build the escape pod for some entitled billionaire’s kid while your own sat at home and waited to die. He hated it, but it was a possibility. Hell, given they had come from the same solar system, maybe those people were even some of Megamind’s species.

Megamind continued his quiet, but frantic ranting. “No wonder that portal gun was made to break, and the energy storage was so low. H wasn’t really expecting to get through at all!”

Wayne put a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder to stop him pacing. “What do you mean?”

“You said he was _launched_ through the threshold, right? Because the other you had hit him _? That wasn’t planned._ This crazy bastard used himself as bait to get the bad guy in a **_temporal blender_**. Killing the bad guy was too important to risk bringing him to another world, so-“

“It was a suicide gambit,” Wayne said. It hurt to hear that. Now he wasn’t even able to kill the guy personally, and he very much wanted to.

Megamind nodded. “I’m almost certain. The violent turbulence that killed him wouldn’t have occurred if both dimensions weren’t bridged. That… _me_ left himself a little leeway but not much. He couldn’t risk failing in the main objective. Escaping wasn’t the point; killing the bad guy was, even if he aimed for an alternate world he just hoped would be there.”

Wayne slid down the wall and sat on the floor while he let that sink in. Damn it, he shouldn’t feel _responsible_ for this. He hadn’t done anything to this man. He wasn’t the bastard that’d met what was likely an entirely justified fate being ripped to shreds in the gap between dimensions! But he **did** feel responsible, because every neuron in his alien brain was screaming at him that there was something very wrong with a living being that was **_his_** and he needed to fix it.

\--

He awoke to warmth, dull pain, and a terrifyingly familiar smell.

Alone, thankfully, but not for long considering he knew what _his_ bed smelled like and he felt distinctly free of the grime he studiously applied to ensure he was as unappealing as possible. The bastard may have _decorated_ him, but he would damn well hang out in sewers if it made the kidnappings and subsequent need to escape less likely. There must be minions nearby, guards and such, otherwise he wouldn’t feel as if he’d been scrubbed so thoroughly. Invidious couldn’t stand handling his favorite plaything if he wasn’t in pristine condition.

Keeping his breathing slow and steady, trying to stay calm, he concentrated on his body for a damage report. The pain mainly came from his jaw and the back of one shoulder. He estimated a small fracture and a burn; nothing serious. A slight pressure around his waist told him he wasn’t nude under the blanket at least. He assumed it was a robe due to the size and feel of the material. Knowing whose robe it was made his empty stomach roil, but he couldn’t risk reacting until he had a plan.

Double-checking on his immediate condition made him aware of anything that wasn’t pain or pressure. First was the hunger. It hurt after all the healing he’d gone through while out. That he could solve later so long as there was no danger of passing out from it. Thus far that didn’t seem likely. 

After that he noticed with a pang of worry that the scent around him wasn’t what he remembered. The blue alien might not be able to smell nearly as well as his enemy, but his species could outdo any hunting dog in a second. This change disturbed him. It felt as if it had come from a different source that somehow happened to have exactly the same basic foundation. It was tinged with different subtleties to it that couldn’t possibly have been caused by changing bathing products or laundry detergent. This was a deeper change: hormonal, or possibly health-related. Unless the bastard was significantly weakened, or had become… dare he consider it… fond of someone that lived here that quelled his temper, it was a strange change.

Either way it was distinctly less of an overpowering saturation. This place hadn’t been marked nearly as thoroughly as any other of the bastard’s bedrooms. Maybe something had, somehow, managed to make Invidious ill? Unlikely, but very remotely possible if anything managed to get past his skin. This didn’t seem like an ill scent though. Invidious still smelled healthy, he just seemed to be marking with a more mellow aroma than his usual dense, oppressive musk. 

Slowly opening his eyes proved to be unhelpful with the blanket mostly in the way. White was unexpected. He’d never seen _anything_ white in the brute’s many lairs. The strangeness of all these small but very significant differences weighed on him, but he tried to rationalize them away and not give in to his growing suspicion that he was in an unpredictable situation he couldn’t plan for. God help them all if there was another of Invidious’ species on Earth: one of them was bad enough.

The scent was too similar, though. He’d know if it was a different person. Far more likely was the prospect of Invidious having a mate and just being in a tolerable mood in this space due to their presence. But there wasn’t another scent here, so that was off the table. It was all, maddeningly, **him**.

Maybe this was a new place? Perhaps the blanket belonged to one of the bastard’s harlots or was a sort of token he’d gotten from someone and he hadn’t bothered to get rid of it yet? The bandages the blue man could now feel must have been put there to prevent him bleeding on this white fabric and certainly not for comfort. _Nothing_ was **_ever_** done for his comfort, only for Invidious. 

He steeled himself.

Stay calm. Breathe steadily. This was definitely the bastard’s place, strange though it may be, and he was definitely listening. 

Nothing else could be gleaned without leaving his current place but moving anything would garner attention given the bastard’s hearing, and he very much did not want anyone to know he was awake until he had figured out his next move.

Listen. Feel. Smell. THEN think. Only when those available senses were exhausted of new information did he dare to move on to sight and, if necessary, exploration of his surroundings. The latter was always a last resort, though. _Never_ move without analyzing as much as you possibly can while the enemy may still believe you unconscious. Premature reaction causes dangers that may have otherwise been averted by patience.

Then again, not reacting quickly enough comes with its _own_ brand of problems...

If only he didn’t require sleep. Fate was unkind in that respect. His enemy didn’t require sleep, or at least he never seemed to tire. Or perhaps he did, on some level, need sleep and the lack of it contributed to his violent madness. Regardless… Invidious never slept, and because of that it meant anyone that did require it was at a severe disadvantage, which was literally everyone else. While one rested, the enemy continued to search and plot and maim and kill.

So, as the blue man always did upon waking, he concentrated.

No sounds indicated danger. It was silent here. Eerily so, as if it was deliberate. Not even ambient noise from outside of whatever structure he was in could explain the penetrating quiet. From this he guessed that Invidious had lived here long enough to have the sound-proofing installed that would keep nearby sounds from assaulting him, as his hearing could not simply be shut off. The temperature of the air on his face was still, slightly cool, and had a gentle yet obvious earthy smell to it. Wherever this was, it was underground. Without even the hum of an air conditioner or the smell of air from the outside, be it city stink or the hint of pollen and dew, that much was obvious. 

Yes, this place was below ground level; insulated and quieted purely by being away from the atmosphere as well as within each wall. The air was filtered and the environment within was, if not simply clean, then sterile.

There was nothing else to sense aside from what he could feel as he was. He felt rested, which was strange. Nothing was ever calm long enough for him to sleep past the nanites need for it. As a result, the majority of his injuries usually only healed well enough to cease being dangerous but still cause him a lot of pain. Taking a moment to assess the situation, he tried to remember the last thing that’d happened before waking here.

Ah.

Invidious had **hit** him. 

That was perfectly normal and nothing to concern himself with so long as he was alive to remember it and wasn’t missing any limbs. As far as he could tell all his limbs were accounted for and both of his eyes worked. Since he was relatively sure he didn’t have a concussion he decided that getting the hell out of here was paramount to anything else. He just hoped nobody had-

_-taken-_

_-the portal gun-_

**Oh.**

**_Shit._ **

He’d _used it_ , hadn’t he? He’d survived and made it through.

But had the bastard made it through too!? 

Finally, outside his control, a mild panic set in. The instant his heart rate elevated he heard something on the other side of the door: loud enough for his ears to catch over the soundproofing. 

Invidious himself announced, “He’s awake.”

\-- 

“And scared,” Wayne continued quietly while Megamind glared at him for practically shouting the previous statement in surprise.

Megamind rolled his eyes. “Of course he is, he just _heard you_. I can hear better than you think I can. _Stay **here**_.”

Roxanne and Wayne shared a concerned look but stayed where they were while Megamind approached the door. He looked back to Wayne and soundlessly mouthed, “Where is he?” He wasn’t about to take any chances with any version of himself that had successfully killed their world’s equivalent of Metro Man. Wayne confirmed he was still on the bed and Megamind nodded before opening the door. 

Nothing in there was moving, so he stepped inside. As an afterthought he picked up the portal gun and took it in with him. He shut the door and leaned casually against it while facing the bed. Insane processing speed included, Megamind waited just long enough to be considered a short pause before speaking.

“Don’t worry. You succeeded. You’re the only one that made it through that portal, and my friend saw what was left of your pursuer get ripped to shreds.”

“I know his voice.”

“That’s just Wayne. He’s not _your_ whatever-his-name-was. The best way to deal with Wayne being able to hear everything around him is to ignore it,” Megamind said coolly. Unless they had entirely different languages it would have been impossible to miss whom Megamind was referring to. “I’m sure _he_ does most of the time, overly polite goody-two-shoes that he is.”

The other him sat up slowly and regarded Megamind with such obvious fierce distrust in his eyes that they looked completely at odds with the rest of him. He was skinny and small and injured and positively _drowning_ in Wayne’s gold and white robe that was five sizes too big. His face bore a deep purple and swollen bruise and there was a thick bandage just visible under the collar over his laser burn. He was haggard and pathetic, covered in scars, and dog-tired at a glance.

But the way he held himself and the sharpness of those green eyes caused frantic alarm bells to ring In Megamind’s head. 

There were people in every prison you just did _NOT fuck with_ , no matter how weak they appeared externally. Megamind couldn’t even explain _why_ exactly, but this guy was so many kinds of dangerous that Megamind gave him a minute nod just to communicate that he’d noticed and, thus, respected it.

His other self nodded in kind.

_Good to know I haven’t lost my touch_ , Megamind thought smugly. This was the kind of thing you just could **not** explain to Roxanne or Wayne without sounding insane, and the doppelganger across from him -from a completely different universe – understood that minute nod instantly. This tiny, malnourished, apparently down-and-out version of himself would **_fuck you up_** and there was no other way to communicate it other than to notice it and let him notice you noticed it. _That_ was respect.

Megamind had the home advantage, so everything depended on what he said next.

He settled on flattery and stating the obvious.

“This,” Megamind said while holding up the portal gun, “Is _magnificent._ I can think of far easier and more comfortable ways of committing suicide, though.”

A challenging sneer that would have baffled both Wayne and Roxanne crossed the duplicate’s face. These were inmate rules and Megamind would damn well stand at the door until other rules were accepted. This was a _fight_ , Megamind had the _advantage_ , and this tiny terror would bite and claw his way to freedom or die trying. This guy might be familiar with his own versions of Metro Man and Roxanne, but they weren’t _here_ , and Megamind needed to make damned sure that was clear before this guy got to travel.

“While I won’t say I had **_no_** hope of surviving, it wasn’t part of the plan.”

The voice struck him too. Megamind was keeping himself cool and level and on even, friendly tones. The other him, however, spoke the way Lord Scott had when he was alive. Somehow disinterested, dismissive, and authoritative at the same time. Megamind began to suspect this guy was something of an asshole, or at least had learned to present himself that way in defense. Hopefully it was the latter.

“That’s precisely the **_wrong_** way to speak to Wayne,” Megamind said clearly, warning the new guy about an unbeatable enemy and just hoping he caught on. “He is definitely not a bad guy and he’ll be easier to get along with if you don’t upset him the second you meet. Besides, it’s just rude. It may be entirely technical for you at this juncture, but you’ve never met him.”

His mirror image gave him a clear I-don’t-believe-you stare.

“Let’s start with something easier then,” Megamind said in his usual chipper manner. The best course now was, Megamind thought, was to be honest about himself and what was going on. “I brought you some basics until we can figure out something better.” The bag by the door was tossed over onto the bed and the duplicate gave it a suspicious glance. “Clothes, casual wear, paint bombs, instant coffee, slippers, a ray gun, some minor cosmetics, depleted uranium, toiletries, welding gear, powdered creamer – hazelnut of _course_ , a spare nanobot injector, sewing kit, 85% dark chocolate, bandages, whiskey, cranium polish, … all the essentials.”

The other seemed incredulous before slowly opening the bag and rifling through it’s contents once his initial prodding confirmed it wasn’t booby-trapped. 

Megamind nodded. “Before I go out to see if your breakfast is ready, will you tell me your name?”

“No.”

“ _Fine_ , be all mysterious and dramatic. I’m getting pancakes. Roxanne is an absolute pancake genius!” Then, with a somewhat bewildered double behind him, Megamind left.

\--

“That went… pretty good.” Wayne said.

“It went **_terrible_** ,” Megamind hissed. “He’s dangerous, and in a way I’m _not_. I’d be very relieved if you would keep him contained until I get more of a handle on what his overall deal is, okay?”

“You want me to keep him trapped here like a prisoner?” Wayne asked anxiously.

“He’s aggressive and defensive. I’m hoping it’s just from life experience and not his core personality.”

“And if it’s not?”

“He’ll need some… socialization therapy.” Megamind paced a bit and lightly tapped his forehead with his fist. “Ugh, he probably needs that anyway. I don’t think there’s anything he could do to hurt you here since there’s nothing resembling tools or machines to-“

“You just gave him a ray gun,” Wayne pointed out wryly.

“The most he could do is destroy your stuff, and you can replace them easily. Besides, what’s he going to do with it? Mess up your hair?” Megamind teased.

“Yeah, I’ve known you long enough to know you can repurpose things pretty fast into weapons. What if he takes it apart?” the larger man demanded.

Megamind already had an extensive and complete list of all the components in Wayne’s place by now. “Oh, it’ll be fine unless he gets to your hot tub controller.”

“What the hell could be in my-“

“GUYS! I’m getting _really tired_ of pretending I can’t hear you!” Roxanne called from the kitchen.

Megamind flushed abruptly and called out to her. “Apologies, we will be there momentarily!”

Wayne palmed his face and groaned. “What exactly is your plan here?”

Megamind laughed nervously. “If he’s…” he hesitated, “…SMART… he’ll use the nanobot injector and eat all of the chocolate. The magnesium will help. We’ll make him decaf coffee, which he’ll be expecting, then I’ll spike it with-“ He paused, not wanting to list a chemical compound. “Well, the stuff that makes raspberries smell like raspberries. It’ll knock him out.”

“Then what?” Wayne pressed. “We can’t just keep drugging him!”

“After that, Roxanne and I will leave, and you just need to act like yourself.” When Wayne looked like he was about to argue, Megamind hissed at him. It wasn’t what any human or Earth animal would have recognized as a hiss, but Wayne stood there dumbstruck for a second. “He needs to know who you are,” Megamind stated. “Everything should be fine after that! The instant he absorbs that you are a wholly different person than the bastard that marked him the better.”

Wayne glanced back, through the walls and at the double currently munching on chocolate with an empty syringe next to him and glaring at the door because _of course he knew Wayne would be watching him._ He ran a hand down his face and looked at Megamind plaintively. “I don’t know how to do this! I’ve never had more than a one-night-stand. And even though I’ve had a lot of those, I’ve never marked anyone. How am I supposed to-“

Megamind smiled. “Just be nice to him.”

“Fucking DUH,” Wayne resorted to a middle-school phrase.

“Exactly. You’ll be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my husband is aware of how much I love the Megamind movie and he got me an appreciation gift for all the work I’ve been doing in quarantine (working from home, homeschooling, keeping up with chores, etc…). He came to me with a UPS box and I now have the Megamind Mega Collection comic book and the artbook for the movie! And the artbook is ENORMOUS and beautiful! It even includes pages on the Doom Syndicate members – some of whom didn’t even appear in the video game! My personal favorites are The Puzzler, Jive Turkey, and Rockatoo. Every side character has a page with a little story and review of them, including the Mayor, the Warden, and BERNARD!   
> And the weird little character moments in the random artwork? It’s brilliant. Here’s a short list of some of the things I found:  
> Megamind working in nothing but socks, leather gloves, and underwear (normal white briefs).  
> At one time, Megamind looked a lot like Galactus and had more typical evil villain lairs with more streamlined inventions, shark tanks, and libraries spanning whole floors of his Lex Luthor office building. Personally I much prefer the more down-to-earth hardworking nerd with a rock motif.  
> Metro Man’s costume concepts are hilarious and make him look a lot more… 1930’s Military with Hollywood flair. Lots of red, blue, and yellow with Soldier Boy stamped all over it.


End file.
